Jews Around the World Speak Out Against Israel’s Actions

Jews around the world are voicing opposition to Israel and the country’s aggressive military tactics. Journalists, activists, political staffers, and even retired IDF generals are calling out the dehumanization of Palestinian people by the Israeli government, military, and media.

It’s not just a few fringe voices speaking out against Israel. Research indicates that world opinion is, indeed, turning against Israel’s government in the wake of its genocidal campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’ deadly Oct 7, 2023 incursion.

Retired IDF General Decries Israel’s “War Against Civilians”

“A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a pastime, and does not engage in mass population displacement,” said Yair Golan, a former chief of staff of the Israeli army and current voice of opposition to the Netanyahu government. “Israel is on the path to becoming an apartheid state, like the South Africa of the past, unless it returns to being a rational, democratic nation,” opined Golan in a May 2025 interview with Israeli radio station Reshet Bet.

While Golan’s remarks were condemned by the current Netanyahu administration, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak called the chairman of the country’s Democrats party “a brave, direct man.”

This wasn’t Golan’s first time speaking out against Israel’s conduct as a nation. In a 2016 speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day, then-IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Golan called for “a deep reflection” by Israelis on the character of their country.

“If there is something that frightens me in the memory of the Holocaust, it is identifying horrifying processes that occurred in Europe… 70, 80, and 90 years ago and finding evidence of their existence here in our midst, today,” Golan said. “It should bring us to deeply consider the responsibility of leadership, and the quality of a society.”

New Israel Fund CEO Mobilizes Dissent to Israel’s Descent into “Pariah State”

In the days following Golan’s radio interview, Daniel Sokatch, CEO of New Israel Fund, an international organization advocating for democratic values and meaningful social change in Israel, published an article titled “Israel is becoming a pariah state. Here’s what American Jews must do.”

 “As this colossal shift takes place, the major institutions of American Jewish life are mostly silent. But American Jews themselves can no longer afford to look away or defer to institutions that ask them to check their conscience at the door.

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“The Israeli government’s official and explicit policy today is the equivalent of drunk driving. It is not about hostages or peace or democracy or equality — or any of the other values that American Jews broadly hold dear. Their policies are about punishment, expulsion and occupation.

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“American Jews looking for a new path forward can start by supporting the Israelis who have protested every single week for the last 19 months, insisting that their government make a deal, bring the hostages home and end this war. They can support organizations like the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Israel’s version of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging authoritarian laws in court. They can get behind those Israelis who are traveling to the Gaza border every week — sometimes carrying food — and demanding that the army let more aid in.

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“These citizen activists are not fringe voices. They are the moral center of Israeli society. Because if our Jewish communal institutions won’t support them, it’s time for American Jews to find new organizations that will.”

Blind Support for Israel Fraying Among American Jewry

With the aid of polling data, Australian best-selling author, filmmaker and independent journalist Antony Lowenstein also touched upon American Jewry’s reluctant turn away from Israel in a February 28, 2025 Middle East Eye opinion piece:

“American Jews, long believed to be Israel’s loudest supporters, are splintering — and it’s long overdue. According to a poll released last May by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, around one-third of US Jews agreed with the contention that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

The massive pro-Palestine protests across the US, especially at university campuses, have been smeared by critics as antisemitic hate marches. But among the polled American Jews, 28 percent saw the demonstrations as wholly anti-Israel, while 34 percent described them as pro-peace and anti-war.

In a further blow to the uncritical pro-Israel consensus among those fanatically devoted to the Israeli state, more than half of those polled supported the idea of withholding American weapons to Israel in the context of the Rafah invasion.

Last November, when Americans were voting in the presidential election, another poll of American Jews, conducted on behalf of the liberal Zionist lobby group J Street, showed general support for Israel but massive reservations about the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sixty-two percent backed Washington not sending some weapons to Israel until Netanyahu backed a ceasefire deal in Gaza. The majority of those polled also had unfavourable views of the Israeli prime minister and supported sanctions against the far-right ministers in his government.”

Canadian Parliament Staffer Calls Out Apartheid, Ethnic Cleansing by Israeli Occupation

Ilan Goldenblatt, Chief of Staff to Canadian Member of Parliament Paul Manly, was born and raised in Haifa, Israel, the son of Montreal Jews who emigrated to Israel in 1972 as Zionists.

His childhood home was full of books about antisemitism and the Holocaust. He attended the Israeli K-12 public education system, stood in silence on Remembrance Day and Holocaust Memorial Day, went to Poland on a high school tour of the Nazi death camps, and served in the intelligence service of the Israeli military. His family still lives in Israel.

Goldenblatt reports seeing with his own eyes the apartheid treatment of Palestinians and believes what is happening in East Jerusalem is ethnic cleansing. He asks, “How can anyone justify having these Palestinian families now lose their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, without having the right to claim their lost homes and lands in Israel?”

“Criticizing Israel’s government and its actions does not equal antisemitism. Equating the Israeli occupation with apartheid does not equal antisemitism. Calling what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah ethnic cleansing is not antisemitism,” says Goldenblatt. “Standing up against Israeli provocations, against Israeli violations of international law, and against a hard right Israeli government is the right thing to do morally, as a stand for human rights, justice and in hopes for peace. We lose moral ground by being neutral on this issue. BLM activists, Indigenous activists and feminist activists are standing up against occupation and for Palestinian rights.”

 Why is Israel oppressing Palestine?

To learn more about the beginning of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, explore the Terror + Conflicts exhibit.